It's Probably A Coincidence
by diminunito
Summary: Normally, I wouldn't want to remember. Normally, we'd all want to forget. This is not a romantic story. It's just a story.  Junpei and Clover, basically.   T for what it might become, we'll see. Also please note that there are spoilers for the ending!
1. 1: Unable To Hear

A college student, around twenty-one years of age, was sitting at the bar section of his favorite hamburger joint. Normally, he wouldn't come to these sorts of places, but they were the perfect place to have a conversation and not have to worry about being overheard. With so many people talking, he could say whatever he wanted and nobody would care.

Junpei looked at the slip of paper on the bar in front of him, and dialed the number into his phone.

"_Hello?_" The voice on the other end of the line was deep and scratchy, although part of that could have been the poor reception on his end.

"Hey, it's me." Junpei's voice was cold, and soft.

"_...Junpei?_"

"Surprised?" He laughed, although it was a quiet and empty thing.

"_How did you find this number?_"

Junpei didn't respond. The voice on the other end, too, was silent for a moment.

"_Okay, why did you call me_?"

"You're a detective, aren't you? I need you to-"

"_You want me to look for her?_" There was a sigh, and Junpei frowned. "_Look, I've tried, it's practically impossible - the two of 'em, they've practically disappeared, she's covered 'er tracks damn well-_"

"-look for Akane Kurashiki," Junpei finished, with a slight heavy finality in his voice. "I need to find her."

"_Like I said, she's gone, Junpei._"

There was an electric beep as Junpei hung up. Still holding the cellular phone in his hands, Junpei stared at the glass window in front of him, brown eyes empty. There was a faint reflection through the glass, and his tired face was staring back at him.

I look terrible, Junpei thought to himself. He continued to scrutinize his appearance in the window, when suddenly his visage was replaced with that of a girl's. There was a girl, standing on the other side of the window, her green eyes wide with shock.

'_Junpei_,' her lips mouthed, as the chill December weather caused her breath to freeze as it left her mouth. Junpei blinked, taken aback by her sudden appearance. Without another word, the girl turned and began to walk away quickly. Junpei blinked once more, and shook his head. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he was just very tired.

"_Jumpy!" A girl with brown hair, and purple eyes, calling his name. Her name for him was Jumpy, just as he called her..._

"_Kanny!" Jumpei stood up from his seat on the swingset, and ran towards the waving girl. She giggled, adjusting her backpack on her shoulders as he approached._

"_Did you wait long?" Akane asked, playing with the ends of her hair as they walked. Junpei thought for a moment, then shook his head._

"_Nope! I just barely beat you," he shook his head, grinning from ear to ear._

"_Rea-lly?" A small pout on her small lips, Akane looked up at Junpei._

"_Honest! I'll never be the one to keep you waiting, Kanny! I'll always be there for you."_

"_O-oh?" The girl next to him seemed a little surprised by the sudden confession, her face reddening slightly. She looked away, as if she were trying to hide it. "Then if I'm ever in trouble," she said, her voice slow and hesitant, "will you come and save me, Jumpy?"_

"_Of course!" Junpei nodded confidently, oblivious to the blush on Akane's cheeks._

"_I wonder what my brother would say to that," Akane said softly, looking up at the setting sun. She had been going to cram school a lot lately, often late into the night, but Junpei would always wait for her in the evenings and walk with her until they split up._

"_Your brother?" Junpei tilted his head. "Oh, I still haven't met him! Maybe one day I'll get to, huh?"_

"_I don't know about that," Akane said, smiling ruefully. "He's always busy with work, he's always working hard for my sake... Maybe one day I'll be the one to work hard for his sake." Without realizing it, Akane's words trailed off, and her eyes went distant. "I'd like to pay him back one day..."_

"_I'm sure you will!"_

"_Huh? Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to ramble on like that," Akane apologized, having only just realized what she was saying. She laughed weakly. "I must sound so ridiculous, saying things like this..."_

"_No, not at all," Shaking his head, Junpei looked over at Akane. "I'd sure like to meet your brother one day, he seems like a really cool person!"_

"_Really?" Akane's eyes lit up, and she smiled happily. "I'll be sure to tell him that, then."_

"Junpei!"

All of these people, calling his name today. He must have been getting popular, huh?

"Junpei! Oh my god, are you asleep or something?"

Asleep? Had that been a dream? Then maybe this was still a dream.

"Junpei! I swear, if you're ignoring me..."

Recognizing the danger hanging from the voice, Junpei's head shot up, and he turned his body to stare up at the person threatening assault on him. Hair such a bright pink it was almost offensive, sharp and accusatory green eyes, hands on her hips.

"Clover! What are you doing here?" Junpei grabbed the slip of paper that his head had been resting on and crumpled it up, shoving it into his pocket.

"What am I doing here? Gosh, can't a girl come to these kinds of places if she wants to? I get hungry too, you know!"

"I can imagine, with how energetic you are," Junpei sighed, turning back to stare out the window. His melancholic mood had been utterly crushed by this loud girl's sudden arrival. Said loud girl huffed (loudly), and plopped herself down onto the seat next to Junpei.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She demanded, leaning forward in her seat and staring up at Junpei.

_Yeesh, if looks could kill_, Junpei thought to himself, pointedly looking in the other direction.

"Well?" Clover slammed her hand down onto the bar, continuing to glare at Junpei.

"...Nothing," he finally responded, looking over at her. She was silent, then, as if she was trying to figure out something wrong with his statement. Junpei looked down at her from the corner of his eye, and then stood up abruptly.

"Where are you going?" Clover spun in her chair to look up at him, moving forward as if she meant to stand up as well.

"Nowhere. Away from you, how's that?"

Clover opened her mouth to retort, and she likely would have strung together a loud string of retorts had she not suddenly come to the realization that they were in a public place, and starting a shouting match in the middle of a restaurant probably wouldn't have been the brightest idea. Without another word, Junpei walked out of the joint and into the streets, leaving a dumbfounded Clover behind.

"Like I said, I honestly don't have any leads!" The bulky man whom Junpei had called 'Seven' slammed his fist onto the table. Junpei regarded the private detective coldly, and then shook his head, standing up.

"That's not what I want to hear," he said softly, dropping a bundle of cash onto the table. "That's for the meal. Bye."

"What's happened to you, kid," the detective rumbled under his breath, but Junpei was already too far away to respond.

On his way out, he bumped into the girl waiting at the counter. With a startled cry, the pink-haired girl stumbled backwards from their collision, bright pink high heels skittering on the floor.

"Aah!" With a thump, she landed ungraciously on the floor of the fancy restaurant's lobby, the velour carpeting barely cushioning her fall. Junpei paused, beginning to mutter an apology as he turned to look at the person into whom he had bumped into.

"...Clover!"

"Oww," she was muttering, still recovering from her topple. Junpei paused for a moment, and in his few seconds of indecision, there was already someone else helping her up. A man with closed eyes and pale hair and skin.

"Sna...Li..." Junpei hesitated once more, unsure what to call the man in front of him. Snake? Light? At least his sister was an easy one. Clover had been Clover, even before and after the game. In the meantime, Clover had regained her footing, as well as her fiery spirit as she glared up at Junpei once again.

"Watch where you're going, dumbass!"

"...Sorry," Junpei muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning to leave.

"Was that Junpei?" He heard Clover's brother ask, although he soon turned a corner and was gone, unable to hear Clover's reply.


	2. 2: Unable To Forget

"Do you always eat here?" Clover asks, dangling her legs off of the edge of her stool and resting her head on the counter. She looks over at Junpei, who is staring out the window quietly while holding a half-eaten burger in one hand. He doesn't respond, and Clover exhales in a huff.

"Did you forget how to talk, or something?" This time, her voice has an edge to it, and she lifts her head off of the counter to look out the window, trying to see what Junpei is staring at. But of course, she can't see it, and of course, she knows this. She knows that Junpei is looking for June, for Akane Kurashiki, and even though she tells herself she doesn't care, there is a small part of her deep beneath the pink and black punk look that does care. But then she blinks, and the feeling of caring is gone.

Without a word, Junpei stands, leaves the burger on the counter, and walks out on Clover. She sits up straight, spinning around to watch as he leaves. She doesn't care.

"_Ah...Clover, is that you?"_

_She doesn't believe it. Her green eyes are wide and unblinking, and she stares down at her brother, sitting in a hospital bed with a cast over his shoulder, that's right, his shoulder, there's not an arm there anymore...! His eyes, too, are bandaged, and so it's no wonder that he had to ask that it was her. But she still doesn't believe it._

_Their father is sitting next to Light's hospital bed, his eyes haggard and his face drawn. He looks like he's a zombie, the young Clover thinks, gripping her aunt's fingers with her small hand. Just yesterday, she and Light had been picking four-leaf clovers together in a field until the sun set and their mother called them inside before it got dark. Light's eyes had been much better than hers, and by the end of it he had found far more clovers than she._

_But then he gave them all to her. _Idiot, you should have kept them for yourself._ She feels almost like she is going to cry, and even as warm tears roll down her cheeks, Light doesn't even seem to notice._

_That's right. He can't see. He can't see, but she notices the twitch at the corner of his mouth, twitching towards a frown._

"_Clover...don't cry," he says, reaching out his right hand to his side, slowly and tentatively. Clover sniffles, and walks over to the side of his hospital bed, gripping his pale hand in her own two. Her strong front fades, and she does care. She definitely cares. She cares so much, she cares for the both of them, because even as she bawls and cries like the small child she is, Light's face remains clear of tears, his mouth set in a resolutely grim frown._

"_Hey, now, didn't I say to not cry?" Clover looks up at her brother, who falters as he means to pat her on the head, but his only hand is still being tightly gripped by his little sister. Sniffling once more and standing up straight, Clover turns to her father, still gripping Light's hand in hers._

"_He'll get a new arm, right?"_

_Their father falters, surely running through his mind right now is the money it'll cost, the time it'll take to rehabilitate, and the money. The money._

_Light senses this. "I'll be fine without one," he says, voice soft and gentle. Even though he's lost an arm, he's still like this. Clover shakes her head._

"_He'll get a new one, right?"_

"_Clover, I'll be fine," Light tries again, but he has no arm to reach out to stop his sister, because his hand is still gripped tight in her sweaty fingers._

_She is barely four years old and she cares so much, and when she cares about things she cares with all of her heart._

"He's late today," she observes to herself, twirling the straw in the cheap papery-plastic cup she received. It is nearly drained, and as she twirls the straw she hears the sound of ice cubes crunching against each other, as the plastic straw and plastic lid screech in protest. She does not come here for the food.

Five minutes later than usual, Junpei arrives and takes his seat. He does not notice Clover, and if he did, he makes no indication. Clover huffs and pouts, blowing into her straw and listening to the bubbling sound, before discarding the half-empty beverage in a nearby trash bin.

"You were late today," Clover says, looking at Junpei out of the corner of her eye. "Did something come up?" She stares out the window, not expecting to hear any sort of response from the stoic brown-haired college student. It is the tenth time she has seen him here, and the ninth time he has refused to speak to her. She doesn't know why she keeps insisting on showing up when she knows he won't respond. It is simply in her nature to care this much when she does.

"It's none of your business," Junpei responds curtly, savagely tearing a piece of his burger off and shoving it into his mouth. Clover blinks, startled out of her reverie. She looks over at Junpei, her eyes wide.

"Junpei...what did you say?"

"It's none of your business," he repeats, and he doesn't know why he is saying this, but he is tired of this girl's nonsense, tired of being followed around, tired of looking for Kanny but he knows that he's going to keep looking because maybe tomorrow he'll have a lead and maybe tomorrow he'll find Akane Kurashiki again. This is the tenth time, but it is ten times too many. He should have been doing this alone. He should have been all alone, until he found Kanny again. "It's none of your business, Clover, so I don't see why you insist on showing up here every day." He can feel an anger building in him, because for some reason the girl beside him is irritating him, but he can't understand why. "So unless you're going to help me somehow, just get out of my life! Seeing your face makes me sick, seeing your face makes me remember, seeing it makes me think about...about..."

His words fail him, and he realizes what he has said. Clover is silent, her green eyes still wide, blinking every few seconds. She gulps, unsure on how to respond to Junpei's sudden cold outburst. She raises one hand to her mouth, running over a million things to say in her head. A million retorts. A million insults. A million phrases, but none of them form on her tongue.

"I care," she finally says, in a soft voice, before standing up abruptly and walking off, her high heels clicking on the tiled floor. Junpei almost thinks he heard her cry, but her posture as she walks away is strong, with no sign of angry tears. He sighs, relieved that she has gone, likely for good, and pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket. He examines it, flips it over, and reads the caption on the reverse side. Maybe the expression on his face is a soft smile, but it was probably a grimace. Maybe Junpei has forgotten how to smile, and he slips the paper back into his roomy jean pockets.

"...So, why are you here today?" Junpei stops in his tracks when he spies the pink-haired girl, innocently sipping her drink. She looks up at him with wide green eyes, tauntingly oblivious.

"It's a public place," Clover responds, spinning around to face away from Junpei. He sighs, exasperated, and takes his usual seat next to her. After a moment of awkward silence, he finally speaks.

"...How have you and Sn...Light been?" He asks quietly, fiddling with the straw in his drink. Clover seems surprised, which Junpei counts as a victory in his mind.

"W-we've been... okay, I guess," she finally says, looking down at the counter. "It's been kinda rough, I guess, living on our own."

"Parents? Oh, I guess Snake's old enough, huh..." Junpei speaks without thinking, having decided that this would be the best way to deal with Clover. Eventually, she probably would have managed to make him talk. She was clever like that. So Junpei's strategy was to talk first, and about meaningless things. Things that had nothing to do with Akane Kurashiki, things that had nothing to do with the Nonary Game. But since Clover was clever, she might figure it out eventually. So Junpei had to stall for as long as possible and maybe she'd get bored of him.

"...Yeah? What's that supposed to mean?" Clover's voice, while firm, still had the slight tilt to it that implied that she was confused and taken aback by Junpei's sudden question.

"Well, what about your parents?"

"Oh, uh... Dad's busy with work a lot." Clover bobs her head back and forth, almost as if it's a tender subject. Junpei takes note of her reaction and is quiet for a moment.

"...Really?" He laughed, trying his best to make it sound real. "Can't imagine a man with a kid like you could be _that_ hard of a worker."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clover's voice was sharp, and she eyed Junpei warily. "Are you making one of your bad jokes again, or something?"

"A joke? Yeah, I guess so. It's fine, though, Clover, I understand what it's like to have a useless old man around, so you don't have to make things up."

"I'm not making things up!" Clover protests, although she still doesn't entirely understand the full situation. She's quick and clever with logic, Junpei notes, but she's still a bit slow and dense with other things. He laughs, and it sounds a little more genuine this time.

Clover's not sure what Junpei's up to, but she giggles with him, playing along for now. They chat for a good hour or so, about pointless things, about stupid things, and Clover almost remembers what it was like to be a normal girl. She had been locked up in a confined space, with a numbered bracelet latched onto her wrist like an iron vise, twice, even. So Junpei realized that her childhood must have been horribly broken up. How old was she, even? Eighteen? She didn't look a day over sixteen. So maybe what Junpei was doing for her was a service, to help a lost little girl be normal, even if it was just for a few hours.

But eventually the café lights grew dim, and Clover and Junpei were shooed out of its warm enclosure, out into the cold. They stood there, shivering for a moment, before Clover happily waved at Junpei and began to walk in the opposite direction.

"See you tomorrow, Junpei!"

Junpei hesitated for a moment, wondering if he would have the acting skills to do this again. But then he considered the smile on Clover's face and thought that maybe another day's worth of distractions would be worth it for her. He lifts his hand into the air and smiles, the best fake-genuine smile he can muster, while waving at the pink-haired girl.

When she is out of sight, Junpei's face turns dark and he remembers Akane. He can't keep playing with Clover forever, and even if he'll keep the charade up again tomorrow, he'll have to end it soon. He can't afford to get attached, not when he has such a demanding mission. He had sworn to find Akane again one day, so damned if he wasn't going to do just that.

Clover stands outside of the small apartment she shared with her brother, the keys jangling in her hand as she breathes in the chill air. Her face is red, but she was ready to say that it was just the cold, it was definitely just the winter chill. She smiles to herself, and turns the key in the lock, hearing a decisive click.

But the door doesn't open. Clover's face twisted, and she tried the keys again. Another click, and this time, the door swings open. For a moment, Clover thinks back to the whoosh of cold air she always felt going through a numbered door, _hurry, eighty-one seconds or -_

She puts that behind her and steps into the entryway, her right hand gripping her left wrist. There was no metal band around it, no number decorating the face of the watch-like bracelet. The lights were off, which was strange; had her brother gone out? Was Light gone? She fumbled for the light switch, finally finding it in the dark.

Click.

The light mounted on the ceiling lit up, revealing the torn up state of her apartment. Clover stared with disbelief, from the overturned chairs to the scattered papers. The only thing left in a semblance of normalcy was the coffee table, upon which lay a note. Clover blinked, slowly maneuvering through the jungle of furniture upon the floor, picking up the note. She read it once, twice, and then looked around frantically. In the entryway were her brother's shoes. That meant that he must have been home. But in the small apartment, there was nowhere for him to hide. That meant that he must not have been home.

Clover's thoughts were muddled, and confused. As she looked around the apartment for a second time, all she could think about was the shower room in Building Q, and even though she knew now that the corpse lying by the door wasn't her brother, she still saw the blue jacket and the gray slacks, dotted with blood. She saw the carnage draped across the wall in her mind's eye, and try as she might, she was unable to make it go away.


	3. 3: In A Daze

Today, he finds himself noticing. It is half-past seven and he is sitting alone. Junpei looked around the bustling café, not seeing any signs of the tell-tale pink hair. Was Clover not coming today? He shook his head, telling himself that he wasn't supposed to care, wasn't today going to be the day that he was going to dump her, anyways?

Dump her? That made it sound like they were going out, which they most certainly weren't. No, he wasn't going to dump her in that sense, but he was going to respectfully, but firmly, as friends, tell her off and say to her that they would have to stop seeing each other. After all, he only had enough room in his head for one girl, and that was Akane. But Seven was staying tight-lipped, and he didn't know of anyone else who he could ask. People from their elementary school? No, he doubted that anyone would help him if he went up to them and told them the whole story. Besides, if he involved people who hadn't been a part of the game, who knows what they would have done? At least if he kept it between the six people remaining, they wouldn't involve more people than whom were necessary.

So that meant that the only people he could rely on for help were Ace (oh god not that fucker), Snake (not him either, besides he would never take Junpei seriously), Clover (she had already proven herself to not be very focused on finding June), Seven (most. unhelpful. detective. ever.), and Lotus (he doubted she would help him, either - it seemed like she wanted to separate herself from the Nonary Game, didn't she have kids or something?). That left Junpei by himself.

He sighed, looking disconsolately out the window. When would God let up on him and give him a clue, any kind of clue, to where Kanny was?

"Why are you sighing?"

The voice was almost so soft he missed it. Junpei was startled out of his daydreaming, and turned to his left, spotting a familiar little girl. But there was something about her today that seemed off, almost melancholy. Had Junpei known her better (but he didn't, he had only spent nine hours in somewhat-close proximity with her, along with seven others), he would have thought this behavior to be strange. But he remembered what more than half of those nine hours were like. He remembers seeing her after she came out of Door 3, her face pale and drawn. "Just...just go see for himself!" he can almost hear Seven say, andhe thinks to himself, how did Ace keep his face straight back then?

Even now, her face was listless and tired, as if she had unwillingly dragged herself out of her house to come and meet him, as if the only thing she wanted to do was sit still and forget about the world. But still she had come out to meet him.

If Junpei wasn't so one-track minded, he would have been touched.

"Why are you sighing?" Clover repeats, her lips slowly forming the words, and her voice a ghost of what it normally was. It was as if even speaking required the utmost of effort from her. Junpei almost felt sorry for her. It was just like it was in Building Q.

"...No reason," Junpei finally says, scratching the back of his head. No, he tells himself, he's got to tell it straight to Clover, he has to tell her to stop coming here every day. They needed to stop meeting like this, because Junpei needed to find Akane Kurashiki. That was the only reason that Junpei was still living in this world. He was always chasing after Akane, even during their stay in Building Q. But this time, instead of chasing after the Akane of the past, he would be chasing after the Akane of the future. His future.

"Clover, I-,"

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about," Clover murmurs, her voice still softer than air. Junpei, in his hurry to spit out his prepared speech, almost runs right through her words.

"Th...that can wait," he says slowly, quickly reworking his speech. Dammit, why was dumping - no, not dumping - putting down girls so difficult? _And she's definitely not making it easier_, Junpei thinks to himself, eyeing Clover's dead expression, _not with those eyes of hers_.

"Junpei, my brother, he's-,"

"S-sorry!" Junpei blurts out, quickly standing up and turning away from Clover. She almost looks like she's in tears, but she's a strong girl and she wasn't about to cry in a public place. "I have, uh, things to do tonight, so I've, uh, gotta go!" With that, Junpei was already making a beeline for the exit.

"J...Junpei?" Clover's eyes snap open for a moment, and she reaches out to Junpei's retreating form, but he was already long gone. Clover bites her lip, and she retracts her hand, adjusting the scarf around her neck instead. "My brother, he's gone..."

Her eyes gloss over, and she, too, stands, walking towards the exit as well. She was an idiot, she tells herself, for thinking that Junpei would understand. But, she also tells herself, he did understand, during those nine hours, and he definitely saved her from doing something terrible. She remembers staring at the axe lying next to "Cap," and she remembers thinking that maybe she could end it all like that. She remembers thinking about how she would take the axe and split Santa and Seven's heads apart, or maybe their stomachs, make them feel what her brother had felt when they did that horrible thing to him, when suddenly Junpei was saying something and it was as if she had suddenly woken up from a terrible nightmare. "_his left arm's bones were sticking out-_,"

"_Are you used to it yet?" she asks, watching as her brother stretches out his left arm. He turns to her, but doesn't look at her - the bandages are still over his eyes, and smiles gently, nodding._

"_Yes, it feels fine," he says, running his fingers along the synthetic skin. Clover smiles, too, a happy smile befitting of a girl her age, and although her brother cannot see it, she liked to think that he could feel it._

_Clover sits next to his hospital bed, her short legs dangling off of the side of her stool. It is a stool made for an adult, and so a child such as herself practically had to climb up the side of it in order to situate herself. She probably looked quite ridiculous in the process, but with a blind brother being the only other person in the room, she did not have to worry about anyone thinking her to look silly._

_Their father was busy these days, working multiple jobs, which the young Clover simply took at face value; they needed money to pay for Light's new arm, so if her dad worked more jobs, they would have more money; it was as simple as that. She didn't think about health insurance, or liability of the state, or liability of the guilty party, or life insurance, or any silly adult things like that. All she ever saw in front of her were the facts of what she could see._

Junpei stands just outside of the cafe, staring up at the stars as if wracked with indecision. Maybe the way that he had walked out on Clover was a little rude, but sometimes people were going to be rude and she was just going to have to deal with it, wasn't she? Yes, everything would be fine, he told himself. He shrugged off the look in Clover's eyes; the pink-haired girl was prone to mood swings, wasn't she? It was all going to be fine.

Reassured, Junpei began to walk once more, quickly resuming his brainstorming. Where could he look next in his searching? Where could he turn to next to find a clue, any kind of clue?

A distance behind him, Clover follows, although she is not intentionally following Junpei. Her eyes downcast, she stared at the streets as she walked, although there was nothing to be seen in the slick pavement. Nothing to be seen, as the pavement is suddenly rapidly approaching her face and she falls, maybe she stumbled (served her right to walk around on slippery streets in such high heels), maybe she was just tired.

Junpei had stopped in his tracks once more, thinking about a bookmark he had received from Santa, with the image of a four-leaf clover printed onto it. Faith, love, trust, and luck. Made him sick, the guy had said. Junpei remembers feeling confused about the entire thing, but something had still told him to take the bookmark from Santa, something had still told him to take the white-haired man seriously and take the bookmark. Maybe something had told him that he could save a little girl from insanity by taking the bookmark.

He remembers seeing her downcast face in the operating room, that creepy room with the mannequins, remembers hearing that something telling him to give the girl the bookmark, give Clover the four-leaf clover. Give her faith, trust, and good luck. Wait, was there one more?

Junpei finds himself remembering that feeling, the slight tug in his head that told him, wait, there's a girl who needs your help. He almost shrugs it off as a delusion, maybe brought on by the December cold, but then he hears the screams.

"A girl just fell down!"

"Somebody, call an ambulance!"

What was this? Almost in a daze, Junpei forgets his thoughts, for the second time in the past few days, he forgets his frenzied thoughts that consisted only of June, Kanny, Akane Kurashiki, and all he can think of is Clover, "Pink-hair," or a bookmark with a four leaf clover printed into it, faith, trust, good luck, and love. He turns, and sees that familiar pink hair spilling across the pavement.

His mind is in a daze.


	4. 4: I Have a Sister, Too

_She remembers a happier place. She remembers taking her brother for granted, remembers taking his ruffling of her hair for granted. She remembers taking everything about her brother for granted. She remembers the happy picture of her four-person family._

_But then she remembers a scream, a shout, and a sudden late-night phone call that woke her up. "Clover, you stay in bed - oh, no, I'll take you with me," and maybe she was already accessing the field, even back then. Maybe that was the first time she had accessed it. Light, Light, where are you? Are you okay? Is my brother okay?_

_I'm fine._

_It had been faint, but she had the feeling in her head that her brother was okay. Spurred on by a life-threatening event, the two siblings had accessed the morphogenetic field for the first time. Maybe that was how Clover had managed to sit in the back seat of her father's car without reaching forward and jerking the wheel out of his hands, drive faster, drive faster, dad!_

_The two of them had rushed into the hospital room, only to be greeted with the sight of a bandaged and tired-looking Light. While Clover's father looked around for his wife, the little girl immediately made a beeline for her brother._

"_I knew you would come," he said softly._

"_I knew you'd be okay," she murmured in response. But that was when she took a closer look at him and realized that no, he wasn't okay, and he wasn't going to be okay._

That was when she opened her eyes. There was sunlight streaming through the window and into her room. Clover sat up slowly, rubbing her head. She had the worst headache, what had happened last night? She remembered Junpei walking out on her, and then...

_Scratch._

Something caught at her fingers. Clover frowned, finally looking around at her surroundings. This was not her room in her apartment that she shared with her brother. She felt her head again, finally realizing what the strange thing she had felt in her hair was. There were bandages wrapped around her head, mixed in with her bright pink hair. They were keeping a pad of gauze in place over a spot on her forehead, which she reasoned was the cause of her headache. Had she somehow been injured?

Clover sat in silence, staring at her lap. Why was she in the hospital? Was that why she had dreamed about the time that Light had been in the hospital? Light...her brother... Clover watched as the clean white cloth developed dark spots on it, likely caused by the tears spilling out of her eyes. It was all too hard for her to process; it was all too hard for her to hide. She had never been good at lying; her emotions always showed on her face and so she tried to hide it by being as emotional as she could. Loud and angry, sad and quiet. She couldn't suppress any of her emotions, so her moods rapidly changed and fluctuated.

The room was quiet, and the sun continued to cast rays of light across the room. Although there were no clocks in the room, Clover could easily guess that it was early morning. What was she doing in the hospital? Suddenly she thought about a large hospital room, with countless gray beds lined up next to each other, _There is a reason! At least, there is for me..._

She could not stop thinking about it.

_There was a girl with pink hair in their midst. While the other children all had normal hair colors ranging from black to brown, to black again (although Ennea's did seem a bit bluer in some lightings), there was one girl whose hair stood out like a sore thumb. The same girl was, without speaking to the remaining eight children, running around in a frenzy, eyes frantically searching for something that wasn't there, shouting in her head, calling out to her older brother. Did you hear me, Light? You're going through Door 4, right? The shower curtain, behind the shower curtain, o-oh you'll need a key though, so get the matches a-and...a-and...! Light, are you listening to me? Can you hear me? _

_It was painful to watch. They were falling apart, all of them. The two sisters had huddled up, refusing to talk to everyone else. The six other children were in varying states of desperation, although none to the point of Clover, who frantically ran around the large hospital room, voicelessly screaming for her brother. But she wouldn't cry._

_She was only nine years old. _She is my sister, and she means the world to me. Today is her ninth birthday.

_Clover blinked, her manic scurrying slowing as she stopped next to one of the hospital beds, gripping its metal frame for security as she stared up at the ceiling. _

I collected these because I thought it would show her how much she meant to me. _Clover stood, frozen in place, as she listened._

_He hadn't forgotten. And he was thinking about her, even as they were separated by countless miles. Of course her brother hadn't forgotten about her birthday._

_Some birthday this was. Clover shook her head, pink hair flying in all directions, and rubbed at her eyes. She looked, for the first time, at the eight other children she was trapped in this building with. They all had siblings (well, except for the two sisters) on the Gigantic, just like she did. They had to save them, yet they had fallen apart so quickly; it was a miracle they had even made it through Doors 4 and 5._

"_U-uh...Excuse me!" She called, walking towards the center of the large hospital room. This was not her skill; she was not naturally a leader. But she had to do it, even as her brother had. They had to help their brothers and sisters survive. "Yes, um, could you all gather over here?"_

There was a nurse speaking to her, a lady clothed in white, starchy cloth. A lady with her hair pinned back in a tight bun. Something about an accident, but likely very minimal brain damage - a stay over in the hospital just to make sure. Clover noted that the nurse said "only visitors can be family, though," which, if her thoughts were straight, she might have found rather strange.

_They came slowly, hesitantly watching the pink-haired girl. How could she have blamed them? For the longest while, she had been the most frantically terrified of them all. They had all avoided her, even the children with whom she had gone through Door 4 with. But eventually, they all gathered._

_Clover cleared her throat, sitting on one of the hospital beds as if indicating that the rest of the children should do the same. There was a rustling of clothing and a few squeaks of rubber shoes on the linoleum, but eventually all of the children were seated, in one way or another. The pink-haired girl clapped her hands together, and nodded._

"_We..., we have to stick together. Um, I think you all know this, but my name's Clover. Like, the leaf, for good luck. But that's not all a clover stands for!" Some of the kids seemed hesitant, but others were beginning to pick up what the pink-haired girl was speaking of. Maybe they had contacted their siblings in the Gigantic, just as she had._

"_There's a word for each petal, my brother once told me. One leaf for love, one for faith, and one for trust, and the last for good luck; if we can have faith, trust, and love, surely, good luck will come our way!"_

_It was an awkward speech. There was no denying that. But the children seemed to be picking up on what she was trying to say._

"_You know, I...I have a sister, on the Gigantic." The one speaking was a blue-haired girl, who had been silent for most of their ordeal so far. "We...we're very close."_

"_I have a brother!"_

"_I have a sister, too!"_

"Are you her older brother?" asked a nurse, examining a clipboard with medical records clipped to it. Junpei hesitated, but the nurse, eyes busy with her documents, didn't seem to notice. He gulped, and nodded.

"...Yes, I am."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: First of all, I really want to say thank you to the anon who's been reviewing my chapters! It makes me really happy to see that people are reading the silly scribbles I write and thinking that they're interesting! (And I figured this was the best way to tell you because you're Anonymous whoops)

To anyone else reading this, I really hope that you're enjoying it! Sorry for not having updated for a while, I bet it's been a busy holiday season for all of us...


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